1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a battery-operated electronic equipment.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there have been electronic equipments which are operated by rechargeable batteries, dry cell batteries and such like as power sources.
In such electronic equipments, even while the normal operation of electronic equipment is not performed, minute electric power is continuously consumed in many cases by electronic circuits such as microcomputers (IC chips), logic circuits and sensor circuits which are included in the electronic equipments, and thus, the batteries discharge.
In a state in which a battery is attached to an electronic equipment, when the electronic equipment is not sold or is left unused after the user acquires the electronic equipment, the discharge of battery proceeds over time, leading to difficulty in using the dry cell battery or unintended cutoff of power supply from the rechargeable battery, further leading to deep discharge which makes it impossible to recharge the battery, and thus, causing problems in selling or using the electronic equipment in some cases.
With respect to this, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H9-114560 discloses a technique which includes a circuit configuration to output awake up signal at predetermined intervals, and lengthens the life of battery by periodically stopping the microcomputer operation in a standby state and also stopping the standby current until the wake up signal is output.